


roots in my dreamland

by rweoutofthewoods



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Affairs, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bisexual Lance (Voltron), Businessmen, CEO, Cheating, Consensual Infidelity, Engaged Keith, Engaged Lance, Gay Keith (Voltron), Implied Sexual Content, Klance endgame, M/M, Rich Keith, Song: ivy (Taylor Swift), also rich Lance but Keith inherited, another Fic titled from a Taylor Swift song
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2021-02-02
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:48:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 19,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28297776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rweoutofthewoods/pseuds/rweoutofthewoods
Summary: It starts like this, Lance is a sophomore in high school, Keith is the new kid he hates.Or maybe it starts here: Lance takes a job at Garrison, one of the biggest companies in producing technology, namely aircrafts. This in turn leads him to an event where he meets Keith (again).Or it starts with a questionable decision when Lance takes Keith up on drinks. To be friends... right? Because Lance has a fiancé, in fact Keith does too. So how the hell does it start?A whole lot life events and bad decisions that somehow lead them here.
Relationships: Keith/Lance (Voltron)
Comments: 16
Kudos: 65





	1. Incandescent Glow

**Author's Note:**

> Merry Christmas if you celebrate! This is my gift to you, enjoy :)

**Chapter one: incandescent glow**

It starts like this;

Lance is fourteen, lanky and unsure as most of us are at such an age. He thought he was so grown up, he knew who he was. He was the funny kid, the one who everyone liked but no one wanted to date. Girls rejected him, their pink glossy lips twisting in pity “I’m sorry Lance, I have a boyfriend,” or “I just don’t see you that way,” or “you’re a great guy, someone else will be right for you.”

So what, he was the class clown… liked enough that everyone was friendly but not enough for anyone to fall over themselves for him like they did for Derek or Blake who played on the soccer team? His mama assured Lance that he was lucky not to peak in his freshman year of high school, that his time would come. He didn’t care though, he was fourteen, after all, he just wanted a girlfriend like the other guys.

So maybe it started there, with Lance’s teenage jealousy and insecurities Or it started on a Wednesday, sophomore year when Lance walked into class to find the room buzzing with excitement.

“What’s going on?” He asked his longtime best friend Hunk as he slid into the seat beside him.

“We’re getting a new student,” Hunk shrugged.

“Okay…” Lance raised an eyebrow “that happens sometimes, why is everyone so hyped up about it?”

“I think it’s the kid of some CEO or something,”

“Going to our shitty school?”

“Guess so,” Hunk said and turned towards to front of the class as the teacher clapped his hands to get their attention.

Hunk seemed completely unconcerned by this news, Lance however was curious. Why on earth would some insanely rich kid come here rather than a fancy private school, it didn’t seem right to Lance. Even without his initial suspicion though, Lance would have probably ended up hating the new kid anyway…

_Keith Shirogane._

Son of the CEO of Galaxy Tech Melissa Shirogane. Galaxy was legendary, the were the at forefront of modern technology. Even a lowly high school student like Lance knew it, and Keith… well Keith was boring there was no better way to put it. He was moody and almost always wore black, rarely talking to anyone. If he was the son of anyone normal he would have been ignored, maybe even shunned, but since he was ultra-rich he was _a mystery_. The tough bad boy. The girls fell head over heels for Keith, teachers adored him. He scored top of most of his classes without even trying, half the time he didn’t even show up so Lance was convinced his parents were buying off the school to give him good grades.

When Lance mentioned this to Hunk, however, the taller boy just shook his head “let him be Lance, he was my partner in biology last marking period and he’s very smart. I don’t get your problem with him.”

“He’s weird!” Lance protested.

“By textbook standards so am I Lance,” Hunk pointed out.

“No, you’re not,”

“My hobbies are football and baking,”

“You just have _range_.”

“Maybe Keith has range too,”

“He’s just emo.”

“My mom says you have a right to be emo in high school,”

Lance glared “stop defending him Hunk!”

“Stop being unnecessarily rude, Lance.”

“Ugh, Keith has brainwashed you too, I can’t believe it.”

Hunk just sighed and chose to ignore Lance for the rest of class. He was quite justified in doing so.

Lance never exactly got over his absurd hatred for Keith, but eventually, it wouldn’t exactly matter anymore. They graduated high school, Lance moved away to get his degree, Keith no doubt went off to some expensive college and despite Lance’s previous infatuation, there wasn’t much reason to think of Keith past the halls of high school. As far as Lance was concerned, it ended there, or maybe it never even started.

There’s probably some alternate reality where that was the entire story, six hundred words and completely unmemorable. Barely a story at all, because stories have a plot, a purpose… how do you make a story out of two people who never even had a conversation?

However, lucky for you, seeing as you’re here for a story. In _this reality_ that was just the prologue.

—

“McLain,” Iverson shouted, “I asked for that stage three testing report an hour ago!” He said barging into Lance’s office, his personal assistant trailing behind him, tapping away on her tablet.

Lance resisted the urge to bang his head on the desk. ”You asked for the Maddens report to get to you first,” Lance reminded his boss, in what he hoped was a reasonable tone.

“But I asked for stage three too!”

“I know, but there’s only one of me, I can’t do both at once. I just finished Maddens, I’m working on stage three right now.”

“You know how lucky you are to have this job McLain? I’ve got hundreds of people lined up who’d be happy to replace you.”

Lance sighed unperturbed, it wasn’t a day in the office unless Iverson threatened to fire somebody, usually, that person was Lance or his PA Romelle since they worked closest with the man.

“I’m almost done with the report I’ll have it to you within the hour.”

“You better,” Iverson glared “when you’re done I want you to go check in with Holt, get an updated timeline for the Atlas project, see if they can rush anything, I’d like to get into testing sometime in the next four years.” Suddenly he frowned “wait, I thought Holt was transferred onto Galaxy’s health droid project.”

Iverson turned to his assistant in confusion but before he could even open his mouth she was already holding up her tablet “that was the other Holt sir, Matt.” Romelle informed him.

He grumbled reading her screen with narrowed eyes “not sure who thought it was a good idea to hire both of them, gets too damn confusing.”

“Well, technically Matt Holt is no longer our employee since he’s working solely with Galaxy now.” She had the sense not to mention that Iverson had been the one to hire them.

“Okay, great problem solved. McLain get to work on that report, and you better have me the Atlas timeline by the end of the day, don’t leave Holt without it, I don’t care about excuses.”

—

“No fucking way,” Pidge said as soon as Lance entered her workshop.

The place was bustling, as usual, Pidge held a clipboard to her chest and a pen was tucked behind her ear as she oversaw one of the mechanics working on some piece of technology that glowed brightly. Lance got his degree in aerospace engineering, he knew his way around a ship yet even he couldn’t comprehend the kind of work Pidge Holt did.

“Iverson wants a concrete timeline,”

She’d already guessed this of course “tell Iverson to go fuck himself.”

“I value my job, so no.”

“I gave him my timeline a year ago,” she stated with a glare, pushing her glasses up her nose.

“It was… uh loose. He wants an actual break down.”Lance shrugged.

“Yeah, it’s going to be loose!” Pidge protested.” we’re creating a groundbreaking state of the fucking art ship here, you can’t rush innovation.”

“You can if you want to keep your full budget, he says he wants it in testing in the next four years.”

She scoffed “I can give a new estimate but I have no idea how long it’ll actually take, look it’s day-by-day Lance, we could be in testing by next year or we could be in testing in eight.”

“I know, but we need something to present to the board next week. Make something up, we all know how technology is, if we wind up delayed it’s whatever. Just as long as you give me something to tell the people who pour millions of dollars into our work.” He said with a raised eyebrow.

She crossed her arms unhappily “fine, but it’s going to be completely bullshitted. I’m here to make ships not do paperwork.”

“Fine with me, just get it done, and don’t talk to me about paperwork.” Lance rubbed the bridge of his nose “Iverson refuses to delegate any of the first wave reports to Harris, wants him focused on the schedule fuck ups or something right now.”

“Isn’t it his job to do the first wave reports? you’re supposed to focus on our New Wave, you’re not just the basic office secretary.”

“In his eyes, that’s what Iverson thinks his executive assistant is, forget that I practically run this place as much as he does. Anyway, if Remy hadn’t fucked up the scheduling before he quit everything would be fine, but he had to be incompetent as well as annoying.”

“You’re annoying too,” Pidge pointed out.

“But not incompetent,” Lance shrugged not even bothering to argue the annoying bit.

“Sure, sure. Now get out of my lab and you better not come bug me about the timeline again.”

“No promises,” Lance shot her a joking finger gun and she rolled her eyes as he exited.

Here’s the thing, despite how it may seem, Lance loved his job. He’d originally had reservations when he first went into more office work, he wanted to fly when he was younger, he still did sometimes, but something about the entire process called to him. There was more to it than just getting on a ship and piloting, there was years of planning, engineering, paperwork, and testing to make that ship capable of being piloted. Lance got to be a part of all of it, and it turned out he was quite good at it. Somehow he’d risen through the ranks at record speed and now in his mid 30’s, Lance held a high position at Garrison.

It was exhausting and sometimes nothing but paperwork and meetings. It was worth it though because at the end of the day, they were building the future and Lance was a part of it.

He was comfortable in his life, secure even, despite Iverson’s daily threat to fire him. Everyone knew it wouldn’t happen. Coran the eccentric CEO of Garrison had already made it clear to Lance that if he chose to stick around, when Iverson retired the job would be Lance’s, and well… Lance didn’t plan to go anywhere. He was happy with his job, with his life in general, though it was true his work took up a majority of it. He had a social life though, friends, a loving fiancé, and a close relationship with his family. Life was perfect in Lance’s opinion, if not a little easy, but Lance was okay with that, he got enough excitement from the grueling pace of his job.

So what changed? Let’s be honest… it really started like this:

Lance was at a black-tie event, a gala for some charity or another. As selfish as it may sound, Lance found it difficult to keep track. He attended so many dinners, auctions, and events in the name of Garrison that they tended to blend together. Often he went with Felicity, his fiancé on his arm, this particular night however she’d been at some conference in San Francisco and Lance went without a date.

Even without the company, Lance was an expert at parties. He knew how to drink just the right amount to seem easygoing, yet professional. How to make the rounds and shake the right hands.

“Where’s the lovely Felicity tonight?” Allura Altea asked as she approached Lance, drink in hand.

Allura was the CEO of Voltron Inc. which she’d inherited at a young age when her father passed. She was a force to be reckoned with despite her age she’d quickly earned respect and admiration, she was also a friend of Lance’s.

“San Francisco, she had some conference for work.”

“Ah,” Allura nodded knowingly “well that’s a shame, give her my love?”

“Of course, hopefully, she’ll be at the next one.”

“Hopefully,” Allura nodded “and hopefully that assistant of Iverson’s will attend, Romelle?”

Lance laughed “I tried to get her to come, tonight. She won’t believe you’re interested in her.”

Allura frowned “how could I not be, have you seen her eyes?”

“I have,” Lance said though his response was hardly needed because Allura’s gaze was far away.

“I’m going have to be more straight forward,” she mused, more to herself than Lance “maybe I should just straight up ask her out—“

“Yes, you should,” Lance interrupted “you pining is getting old.”

Allura glared “maybe I will,” she probably wouldn’t but Lance decided against pointing that out, for his own safety.

“Great then,” he shrugged.

She shook her head “now, ” she started ”I came over here for a reason, you know.”

“What not because you enjoy my charming presence?”

She ignored the joke grabbing his wrist “come there’s some people you should meet,”

Lance sighed but let her lead him towards a group of people while he mentally switched from his casual friend mode to respected businessman façade.

“Kolivan, Curtis, and Keith,” Allura greeted, Lance briefly wondered if all of their names started with a ‘K’. “This is my friend Lance McLain, he’s Iverson’s executive assistant over at Garrison. Lance these are the founders of the relief group Blade of Marmora, you’ve heard of them, yes?”

Lance, hesitated uncharacteristically, just for a moment but enough for Allura to look over curiously. Because standing in front of him was Keith Shirogane. Lance had almost forgotten about him but now that he thought about it Lance wondered how he’d never bumped into him sooner. The young and immature part of Lance bubbled with an old resentment, if it’d been ten years earlier he probably would done something to make a fool of himself, but instead Lance shook off his old grudge and nodded. “Yeah, I’ve heard of you guys, great work you’re doing.” He leaned forward to shake of each of their hands.

When Lance got to Keith something weird twisted in Lance’s chest. The other man’s hand was warm and firm, with rough callouses, uncharacteristic of the usual born into money guys Lance met. Keith’s eyes were the same as Lance remembered, dark and unreadable but he’d ditched his emo look for a well-tailored but simple black suit and his hair was styled in an intentionally messy way. It was a little casual for the typical type Lance met in the business world, but it suited him. Definitely worked for his rich-boy heir to the biggest technology company in the world thing…

“Nice to meet you,” Keith nodded letting go of Lance’s hand, his eyes flitted over Lance, studying him for only a brief second before turning back to Allura who was explaining the work Garrison was doing with their Atlas project.

Keith hadn’t seemed to recognize Lance at all, it shouldn’t have been surprising, they’d only shared a few classes and never talked. Still, Lance couldn’t help but feel a little offended.

“How are you powering it, though quintessence? Because you can’t possibly fly a ship like that on gas or any other traditional power source.” Keith said turning his gaze to Lance.

It took him a second to realize Keith was talking about Atlas “um yeah,” Lance tilted his head a little surprised Keith knew anything about the power source for ships “it’s all in initial stages yet of course, we haven’t got to any testing but we have had success with powering aircrafts with quintessence before, it just requires a certain level of caution because it’s so—“

“Unstable,” Keith finished for Lance with a nod “interesting, I’ve worked in powering smaller pieces of technology with quintessence but I can’t imagine a ship that big. Would it be difficult to fly?”

“Well, Pidge Holt is our lead on the project, she’s working on making it as responsive as possible, it’ll take multiple pilots of course, with the size. But with a team she’s hoping it won’t take too much special training to learn to pilot. I’ve flown some of our smaller quintessence ships though, and there’s a learning curve sure, but it’s not so different from traditionally powered ships at the end of the day.”

“You fly?” Keith asked, regarding Lance with a new interest.

Lance nodded “yeah, I’m a trained pilot, it helps to know all sides of the company, not just the paperwork bits.”

“Lance is an exceptional pilot,” Allura nodded proudly “and he has a degree in aerospace engineering, you don’t find anyone more committed to the field.”

Lance smiled at the compliment, he could feel Keith’s dark eyes on him but when Lance looked up he couldn’t read the look in his eyes, it was unnerving to say the least.

—

Okay so look, that wasn’t exactly the start but it felt like it when Lance looked back. The piercing of Keith’s gaze, the history between them that was barely history, Lance often tried to convince himself that there was no other outcome. There were in fact many other outcomes, every single one of them in which Lance simply didn’t make one particular decision.

So maybe this was the start? Maybe it didn’t fucking matter and Lance was just clinging to some cause for all of this, something concrete.

Point is, that night Lance caught sight of Keith that night at the valet line, he could have stayed put, not approached the other man, in another life he probably didn’t. In this one however, Lance did.

“We went to school together you know,”

Keith spun looking almost surprised to see Lance “It was Lance right?” Lance nodded “you went you RNU?”

Lance shook his head “no, Valley High.”

Clearly that hadn’t been the answer Keith was expecting because his eyes widened “really?”

“Do you think I’m lying?” Lance raised an eyebrow.

“I don’t know,” Keith said plainly.

“I’m not, I remember you.” Lance smirked “you were emo,”

Keith frowned at that “I was not,”

“You totally were,”

For a second Keith looked like he was about to get pissed but instead he shook his head, a slight smile breaking onto his face. Lance found himself thinking that he quite liked Keith’s face when he didn’t look like he was two seconds from committing murder.

“I don’t remember you,” Keith said eventually.

Lance shrugged “I figured, we never talked I was just infatuated with you because you were the the mysterious kid and everyone was obsessed with you.”

Keith tilted his head watching Lance “you were infatuated with me?”

Lance blushed at that “so what?”

“Nothing, just interesting to know.”

Keith gaze was intense and Lance felt something twisting in the pit of his stomach.

“You heading home?”Keith asked.

Lance hesitated “should I?”

“I normally go for a drink after these things, blow off steam, you can come.”

Lance shouldn’t have agreed but instead, he nodded “are we going to be friends?”

“Dunno, let’s find out.”

He reached out his hand and Lance took it.

It started there...


	2. tarnished but so grand

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IMPORTANT NOTES: there is inevitably some romanticization of cheating, I am in no way supportive or okay with cheating but this is purely fiction and as I tend to like a more poetic approach to writing, so the romantic pov does happen. 
> 
> ALSO: this fic is more adult than my usual content. I don't Think I’ll write anything which is explicitly detailed but the plot revolves around cheating so there’s references to sexual content. Just be aware, know what you’re reading!!

**Chapter two: tarnished but so grand**

Lance half expected Keith to take them somewhere that was absurdly overpriced for a bar, instead, they went to Hal’s, a little place downtown.

“I love this place,” Lance voiced as they sat down at the bar.

“They have the best fries,” they both said at the exact same time, surprising each other.

Keith paused before shaking his head “I think we might be friends after all.”

“Did you doubt that?”

Keith shrugged “I think you’re going to annoy me, the question is whether or not you’re worth putting up with.”

Lance laughed outright at that and a small smile tugged at the edges of Keith’s lips while he watched.

“Well at least you’re honest,”Lance said.

“Tactlessly so, or that’s what I’ve been told.”

“Honesty isn’t so great for business?”

“Not always, I think you’d know.”

“Sure, but I think as far as companies go, I’ve got the more laidback of the two. I imagine things are more cutthroat at Galaxy.”

Keith frowned “I guess, I don’t get any more involved than I’m forced to. I focus on BoM.”

Lance nodded “makes sense, not sure how you juggle them both.”

Keith looked up “I’d say I hardly do,”

“Are you always _that_ honest?” Lance asked, with a look of amusement.

He scoffed “absolutely not, normally I’m just-asshole-behavior-disguised-as-honesty kind of honest.”

Lance snorted “but see? That was very honest.”

“Stop saying honest, it doesn’t even sound like a word anymore.”

“I’m pretty sure you said it more than me,” Lance pointed out.

“I’m pretty sure it doesn’t matter,” Keith countered.

“Says who?”

Keith rolled his eyes, “I’m gonna need a drink to put up with you any longer.”

“Fair enough, I often need a drink to put up with myself.”

“Sounds like alcoholism,”

“That’s a rude assumption,”

“So it’s not then?”

“Nah, just bad coping mechanisms.” Lance shrugged

“Pretty sure using alcohol to cope is alcoholism.” Keith retorted.

“Fuck you, I’m not an alcoholic just a dumbass. I drink in moderation, plus I’m pretty sure you’re being offensive right now.”

“Well I’m pretty sure saying that it’s offensive is offensive.”

Lance frowned “I don’t even understand what you just said.”

“That sounds like your problem,”

“You’re not going to let me cut any corners here are you?”

“Nope,” Keith said simply.

“Why are we even being friends?”

“No idea, you came up to me.”

“ _You_ said to get drinks,”

“I think you’re interesting,”

“Why?” Lance asked leaning forward “I hardly think there’s anything different about me.”

“That’s true, ”Keith shrugged and Lance felt he she be offended ”there hardly is. But you said you fly and you apparently went to high school with me.” Keith cocked his head, watching Lance through his dark lashes “You’re more interesting than anyone else I’ve met in recent memory. My life is boring, I hate boring.”

“My life is boring too,” Lance admitted “but it’s safe, and comfortable, I think it’s worth a little boring.”

“Bullshit, it’s not safe, it’s just deluding you into a false sense of security until boom, it all falls apart and you’re unprepared.”

“That’s… negative.”

“I’m that as well as honest, run while you can, I’m not a pleasant person.”

While a lot of their conversation had been partly joking something about Keith's voice made Lance feel like this was something Keith had been told, something that may be true, but it was a fact that hurt him.

“Pleasant people are overrated. You spend half your life being perfectly polite, kissing everyone’s ass or having people kiss yours, it gets old doesn’t it? I think it’s nice to have someone real.”

“You know what?” Keith said after a moment “I like you Lance.”

“Friends then?”

“Sure, don’t fuck it up.”

“Says you,”

And that was the start of the weirdest friendship Lance ever had.

—

In the bathroom of the bar, late that night Keith bumped into Lance, but he didn’t back up and Lance didn’t ask him to. Instead they just stood there breathing each other’s air, until Lance broke the silence.

“I’m engaged,” he said eventually, his voice was a whisper though he was unsure why.

Keith reacted the last way Lance imagined he would, the other man laughed. Lance tilted his head confused as Keith’s laughter faded to a chuckle, he paused to catch his breath.

“Me too,”

“Huh?” Lance asked.

“I’m in a relationship too,”

“Really?”

“Yeah,”

“Then what’s happening?” Lance breathed.

“No clue,” Keith was even closer now.

“I’m not a cheater,” Lance told him seriously.

“Me either, I’m about to be though, assuming you let me kiss you.”

“If I say no?”

“We’ll be friends,”

“We’ve been friends for about four hours and now I’m about to kiss you in a public bathroom.” Lance pointed out “not sure the friend thing is working.”

“No, guess it’s not.”

There was a minute of silence while they regarded each other until they both moved at once and suddenly Keith’s hands were in Lance’s hair and his lips were fire on Lance’s.

But it was one time right? Just one slip up, it was the alcohol.

That was the explanation for letting Keith tear off of Lance’s extremely expensive suit. For watching Keith push back his dark hair when he went down on Lance in the back of the car, for why the entire time Lance didn’t feel an ounce of regret or think of his fiancé even once.

Or maybe the explanation was that Lance was simply a terrible person. Because two days later he’d wake up next to Felicity knowing full well that night he’d dreamed of Keith, the way his back had arched when he came.

This was bad, this was really, really bad.

But just one time, right?

—

Keith had come to the uncomfortable realization that his relationship with Lance _was not_ a one time thing.

Six months, thirteen different hook-ups, varying from bumping into each other at events and going at it in the bathroom to Lance inviting Keith to his hotel room sometimes.

Every time Keith told himself just this once, he was a liar. Honestly he felt bad, responsible even. Which he knew was stupid because Lance was an adult who made his own decisions. Yet, Lance had a good relationship. Keith had briefly met Lance’s fiancé Felicity, she was pretty with chestnut hair and bright eyes, worst of all she was kind and charming. Allura had introduced them at a party when Lance was out of town, apparently the two girls were good friends. The worst part was that Lance didn’t even know that Keith had met his fiancé.

Keith was unhappy with his life, to be blunt about it. Shiro said he was restless and he just needed to find “his calling”. Personally Keith thought his brother was full of shit, but the days of rebuking Shiro’s well-meaning advice were long gone. Now Keith just sighed and nodded, it was better to just take everyone’s attempts to fix him than fight it. Fighting it led to stupid things like stealing cars, over drinking, and somber interventions while Keith buckled under his parents’ shame.

So Keith played his part, worked at the family business and even found a way to start up BoM, something _he_ was actually passionate about. Yeah, he was restless, or whatever Shiro wanted to call it. His life was boring, unrewarding. Maybe that was a privileged thought to have though. Keith was aware of how it sounded, poor rich boy complaining that his life wasn’t _interesting_ enough. He knew he was lucky to even have a roof over his head, unlike the other people in his life Keith knew what it was like to live without one. To struggle everyday, to go hungry. By all means, Keith had won the jackpot, most people who grew up like him didn’t get so lucky to even wind up with a family, much less one of the richest in America. Keith had money, had a family, one that put up with him, even loved him after all the shit he put them through.

Yet, Keith was unhappy. At night he often lay awake, staring at the ceiling and listing every good thing in his life, every reason he was so fucking lucky. He tried to convince himself he should be happy, he had every reason to be… but something slept in the pit of his stomach, always keeping him on his toes, uncomfortable and anxious. He tried to settle into his life, he’d been trying for years. But he couldn’t.

And now Keith had dragged Lance into his struggle too.

It would all blow up in his face someday and Keith knew it, he could see every person in his life only as the casualty they’d be. A side-effect of all the ways Keith was fucked up.

“—so how about it?” Damien was saying and Keith was yanked back into reality as he realized that he’d just missed an entire conversation.

“Sorry what?”

Damien stopped staring tiredly “you didn’t hear a thing I just said did you?”

“No...”

Damien sighed “I was asking if you wanted to join me in London next month, I have a bit of business but I know you enjoyed it last time you were there, after my meetings we can make a trip of it.”

Keith frowned pulling out his phone “when would this be?”

“Weekend of the 6th,”

Keith looked over his calendar quickly “okay… as of now I’m free then, no promises it’ll stay that way though.”

Damien shrugged “well that’s the best I can hope for I suppose,” he stood from the couch leaning down to give Keith a quick kiss “try to keep your schedule clear though?”

“I’ll try,”

“Okay, I’m going to bed, I know you said you had work to do, should I expect you to join me tonight ?”

“No sorry, I have to go into the office,”

Damien raised his eyebrows “it’s awfully late,”

“I know, but I’m way behind.”

“Okay, I’ll see you tomorrow then, goodnight.”

“Night,” Keith shot him a half smile which quickly faded as soon as Damien left the room.

Keith stood and for the purpose of looks he gathered up his briefcase and laptop before heading out the door. He felt a stab of guilt at his preparedness as left his house. He had a change of clothes in his car with an overnight bag, cologne to mask the smell of Lance that even a shower didn’t wash off completely. It’d only been six months yet somehow Keith had become an expert at infidelity. The thought washed over him like ice water and he wondered if Lance had too. If Keith had turned Lance from a good, honest man, to a cheater.

Since meeting Felicity Keith’s unease had begun to build.

Lance noticed it of course. That night as Keith lay wrapped up in the sheets, eyes closed as he crept into his exhaustion, the only light came from the faint glow of the digital hotel clock, reminding Keith that he had to be up in an hour if he wanted to get to the office in time.

Keith could hear Lance’s footsteps with more familiarity than six months should have brought, the warmth of the other man’s body as he climbed into bed beside Keith was irresistible and Keith shifted closer. There was the moment of hesitation, there always was, as Lance’s fingers brushed Keith’s arm carefully before he gave in. Arms slipped around Keith’s waist, Lance’s face buried into Keith’s neck, inhaling deeply.

So it wasn’t a one time thing, but it was just sex right? Not a big deal…

Lance pressed a soft kiss to Keith’s shoulder and the sleeping thing in his stomach shifted, shuddered like it wanted to just slip away.

Keith froze, eyes wide in the dark as Lance’s breathing evened out and the other man fell asleep. Keith just watched the red numbers creep upwards. He didn’t sleep that night, in fact he didn’t sleep that week at all.

Keith had been suddenly faced with the inexplicable notion,

That he was in too fucking deep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok so I got so into this fic that I wrote four chapters in two days, expect plenty of updates because I already have the next one ready to go. Ik no one is really reading this yet, but I’ve enjoyed writing it so if even one person is interested it’s worth it.


	3. magnificently cursed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Forgot to note: all chapter titles (so far) come from the inspiration behind this fic, the song ivy by Taylor Swift, really beautiful lyrics so I’m exploiting the hell out of it.

**  
Chapter three: magnificently cursed**

It ended like this;

Lance was sitting on a hotel bed lacing up his leather dress shoes when he looked up to see Keith just standing there watching.

Keith had been weird the past few weeks, when he’d met Lance at the hotel last night the first thing Keith had done was unplug the clock and shove it in the drawer with the Bible no one ever used. Lance had just watched silently, letting the second thing Keith did be shoving Lance down and kissing him senseless.

Lance didn’t ask questions, Keith would never answer them, but now as Lance looked him over, he didn’t like the look in Keith’s eyes.

“I’m going to be in London, I’m leaving tomorrow.”

“Okay,” Lance nodded.

“When I come back…” Keith trailed off his words coming out choked and that was when Lance stood, knowing something was really wrong “when I come back,” Keith tried again “I don’t think we should see each other anymore.”

“Why?” Lance asked numbly.

“Why?” Keith laughed bitterly “Lance, I could give you a million reasons why and you know it, this is for the best.”

“I’m going to assume we aren’t going back to the original plan of friendship?”

“It think it’s best if we cut ties completely,”

Lance shook his head “right.. so what, we shake hands at parties, I look you in the eye and pretend I’ve never fucked you?”

“That’s exactly what you do! You’re getting married next year Lance, if something like this got out it’d ruin your reputation.”

Lance scoffed “like half the people we deal with haven’t had a sex scandal,”

“You’ll thank me for this one day, Lance. When you’re happily married and your comfortable life is intact you’ll be grateful.”

“Fuck you,” Lance said but there was no bite behind it.

For a moment they just stood there, watching each other, being in their little bubble one last time before Keith, who always had more nerve made the last move, he grabbed his briefcase and turned stepping out into the hall. The door closed with a final snap.

Keith didn’t look back, but Lance hadn’t expected him to.

—

Lance rubbed his eyes tiredly as he tried to focus his vision on the paper in his hand. He was overworked and overwhelmed as each day that passed crept closer to his wedding and Atlas was in its most delicate stage which meant that everyone was waiting with baited breath for Garrison to fail. His life was a disaster of wedding planning and long exhausting work meetings.

With some effort Lance leaned forward and powered through the rest of the report he was reading before tucking it away and calling it a night. He gathered his stuff up sighing dramatically when he checked his phone and was met by the reminder that tonight was a couples therapy night.

Lance hated couples therapy, mostly because he was a liar.

Somehow Felicity hadn’t immediately broken off their engagement when Lance told her he’d been cheating, she believed his honesty was a sign that they could fix it.

They’d been in therapy for almost a year now and their relationship was good, except Felicity didn’t know that Lance may have never stopped seeing a Keith or ever told her if not for the other man breaking it off. She also didn’t know that it was Keith. She hadn’t wanted to know any details about the person her fiancé had been sleeping with, she just wanted to fix things.

So they did, except in therapy Lance played off his cheating like hook-ups, he didn’t mention the way he was addicted the the smell of Keith, the glitter of his eyes in the dark. If you were to define it by their actions, sure it was just sex, in Lance’s heart however, it was a lot more.

There was a knock on Lance’s office door and he looked up, pushing thoughts of Keith from his mind, it was something he found himself doing less and less these days, finally the wounds from their relationship had scarred over.

“What’s up Harris?” Lance asked the man standing in the doorway.

“It’s not work related don’t worry,” He pushed his glasses up his nose “Pidge mentioned the party in honor of getting Atlas to testing right?”

“Yeah,”

“We’re you planning on going? Because I was on the rocks about, but Pidge swears it’ll be really small.”

Lance frowned “how small exactly?

“Just some of the leads on the project, us, Romelle and some friends of hers. Allura is going too, and Pidge told me I could bring my husband and brother in-law. My boyfriend’s busy that night though. But she said pizza and movies.”

Lance shrugged not questioning Harris having a husband and boyfriend, Lance had heard all sorts of rumors and figured it wasn’t his business “that sounds decent, and actually casual. I hate when people say casual and break out the champagne.”

Harris made a face “agreed, but we can trust Pidge.”

Lance snorted “on some things at least.”

Harris smiled “that’s for sure, I’ll see you there?”

“Maybe, we’ll see.”

“Okay, we’ll either way I’ll see you at work Monday, have a good weekend McLain,”

“You too Harris,”

Lance waved as the man departed and switched off his lamp, time to get out of this damn office.

—

_“You’re coming to the party and you’re bringing Hunk,”_ Pidge said in lieu of greeting.

Lance made a face at the phone “Hunk might be busy,”

_“Well find out,”_ Lance could practically hear her eye roll from across the line.

“Fine, fine,” Lance agreed.

_“Cool,”_ Pidge said and in her typical fashion, hung up without saying goodbye.

“Pidge?” Felicity asked knowingly as she stirred the pot on the stove.

“Yeah,” Lance shook his head “never takes no for an answer that one,”

“What was it about?”

“Party to celebrate Atlas tomorrow night, did you want to come?”

“I’d love to, but I have plans with Nyma,”

It was only with years of practice that Lance managed not to make a face, he’d never liked Nyma. “Aw, well next time.” Lance said moving past her to dump the tomatoes he’d just cut into the waiting pan.

She shot him a easy smile “of course,”

—

So it was a lie, _really_ it started here… or it continued? Restarted? Well, regardless of what exactly it was was, it went like this;

Lance went to Pidge’s party expecting to have at least a fairly decent time. Pidge was his friend and he enjoyed her company a great deal more than the nameless businessmen he normally spent time with.

“McLain,” Harris waved when he spotted him “you came after all,”

Lance chuckled “well you can’t deny Pidge anything, and please we’re not at work, call me Lance.”

Harris smiled “sure thing Lance, in that case call me Adam. Oh and this is my husband,” Adam gestured to a tall man beside him.

He reached out and offered Lance a firm handshake “I’m Shiro,” he smiled warmly.

“Nice to meet you,” Lance replied. Something about the man was oddly familiar, but Lance couldn’t place what “I’d introduce you to my best friend Hunk, but Pidge already stole him,” he gestured across the room to where Pidge was jumping up and down like an over excited puppy while Hunk no doubt told her about some project he was working on. Brain wise, Lance was pretty sure Hunk was the only person who could keep up with Pidge. Well, aside for Matt.

“Well I’m sure we’ll get a chance to meet,” Adam chuckled “unfortunately I have no excuses as to where my brother-in-law has run off to, but we’ll corner him and make introductions eventually.”

“Not a social guy?”

“Hevis when he has to be, but when we drag him places he always fucks off to hide out.” Adam shrugged.

“He’s just not a people fan,” Shiro added “but he knows Allura and Romelle well so he’ll probably come out to talk to them when he feels more comfortable.”

Lance nodded looking over to where the couple in question were sitting on the couch Allura was throwing popcorn into Romelle’s mouth while one of Pidge’s scientists James Griffin cheered them on. “Can’t believe they finally got their shit together and started dating,” Lance marveled.

Adam snorted “god me either, thought they’d pine forever, but I’m happy for them,”

“Yeah me too,” Lance nodded but before he could continue there was a yell from across the room.

“Lance get your ass over here!”

Lance sighed as Pidge waved her arms “sorry, uh I’ll be right back,”

Adam smiled “no problem, duty calls.”

Lance nodded and turned to answer Pidge’s summon, he then spent the next fifteen minutes moderating a debate about the properties of quintessence between Hunk and Pidge until Pidge predictably won and Hunk dragged Lance away to nurse his wounds.

Hunk struck up conversation with Shiro and Adam and Lance pretended to nod along while engrossed in a work email as he scrolled through his phone.

“Ah there he is!” Lance registered Shiro saying “this is my brother,”

“Oh my god Keith?” Hunk asked and suddenly Lance froze, unwilling to look up from his screen.

“You guys know each other?” Adam asked surprised.

“We went to high school together!” Hunk said. “Isn’t that right?” Hunk nudged him and Lance knew he needed to look up now.

Keith’s eyes were fixed on Hunk, like Lance wasn’t even there “Hunk, yeah?”

Hunk beamed “yeah!”

Lance scoffed “so you remember him then?” He muttered realizing too late that he should have kept his stupid mouth shut.

Suddenly Keith’s gaze was on Lance with it’s full force “Because Hunk was my bio partner, don’t be an ass Lance.”

Shiro raised an eyebrow and Hunk frowned “wait you know each other, I mean like outside of high school?” Hunk said looking between the two of them.

Lance knew he hesitated too long when Adam’s brow furrowed clearly drawing some conclusion of his own.

“Not really,” Keith cut in when Lance didn’t respond “Allura introduced us and we crossed paths at work events a few times.”

Lance nodded dumbly “uh, yeah.”

Hunk made a confused face at Lance but after that the questions stopped and Hunk moved onto reminiscing the messes he’d made with Keith in biology.

Lance kept on his pleasant face the rest of the night but truthfully he was completely rattled, something about seeing Keith a year later felt more damning than sleeping with him in secret had.

—

Realistically Keith had known he’d bump into Lance eventually, however that knowledge hadn’t prepared him for the moment it happened.

Lance had ditched the suits Keith was used to seeing him in in place of jeans and a dark blue sweater. The color accentuated his bright eyes and it had taken everything in Keith to act normally. The primal unrestrained part of Keith wanted to slam Lance against the wall and jump him right there.

The rational part of Keith… was afraid.

It’d been longer since they’d ended than the amount of time they’d spent together. Yet the urge to run to Lance was as strong as if they’d been together ten years and returning to Lance would be returning home.

So a few weeks later when Adam suggested Keith come with him for Allura’s movie night Keith’s first question was: “will Lance be there?”

Adam eyed him suspiciously and Shiro who’d been annoying Curtis on the couch stopped suddenly.

“What’s your deal with him?” Shiro asked.

“Nothing,” Keith muttered but Shiro looked unconvinced.

“Lance who?” Curtis asked curiously.

“McLain, he’s the Iverson’s executive assistant and Garrison.” Adam informed his boyfriend.

Curtis frowned “oh, yeah we met him, at that gala, like two years ago or something? You know I remember this clearly Keith because you seemed to like him and you don’t like many people.”

Keith glared at Curtis and Adam snorted “well Takashi and I saw Lance at Pidge’s and I’m not sure ‘like’ is the word I’d use. More like a mutual resentment.”

“Well what the hell happened?” Shiro asked and Keith felt very much ganged up on.

“Nothing _happened_ ,” Keith said fiercely “we went to high school together, Lance hated me.”

Curtis frowned “did you hate him?”

“No! I didn’t even remember him.”

“Ah,” Shiro said knowingly “so that pissed him off and now he holds a grudge?”

“Makes sense,” Curtis said at the same time as Adam said: “that’s stupid,”

The stopped to glare at each other for a moment before Shiro snapped is fingers at his partners like they were misbehaving children “look Keith, I know you have a hard time forgiving and forgetting, but you should play nice with Lance. I’m sure he’ll get over his grudge eventually.”

Keith just nodded feeling backed into a corner. He couldn’t exactly explain the real reason there was bad blood between them. He couldn’t imagine their disappointment in Keith if they found out he was a cheater on top of everything. They loved Damien, for fucks sake Keith had just gotten engaged! If the trio found out they’d make him tell his fiancé for sure. However, as much as he wanted to avoid that, he now had no good reason to avoid Lance.

He shook his head as the conversation changed pace and Keith let it leave him behind, the sound of his family bickering faded into the background.

Keith _could_ play nice with Lance, he’d be friendly, distant and easy. Apparently their social circles overlapped more than Keith was comfortable with, but he could handle it. What was another secret?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So our story is taking a turn! Might not be how you were expecting it to go, but never fear you’ll get plenty of guilty secret Klance if that’s what you’re here for, also cuteness too ;) 
> 
> Told ya I was moving fast with this fic, I have the next chapter almost finished too!
> 
> Also the semi-colons have been haunting me... I always fuck up when to use them but Grammarly told me it was right, so if it’s not let me live please. I haven’t had a functioning brain since I started college.


	4. now I know I’m never gonna love again

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from cowboy like me by Taylor Swift

**Chapter four: now I know I’m never gonna love again**

In the months after Keith attended Pidge’s party, Lance saw him around a lot. They had the same friends it turned out and Allura delighted in bringing them all together. She was so excited to find her separate friend groups got along, well aside from Keith and Lance.

Their dislike for each other quickly became common knowledge within their friend group. Thankfully no one looked deeper than their petty bickering. It was brushed off and became something of a joke, oh there go Keith and Lance, they hate each other, ha ha!

It was _fine_.

Expect it didn’t feel fine, it felt like dying every time Lance looked up and met Keith’s gaze. Because of course the other man had been watching from across the room, Lance did it too. It was irresistible.

Underneath the bitterness and resentment, Lance felt, there was a whirlwind of other emotions too. Longing, desire, fear, confusion. If he could just it bury with petty hate that would make it easy, but he couldn’t pretend he hadn’t been willing to risk everything just to have sex with Keith in a cheap hotel. Lance couldn’t erase the fact that he had wanted Keith _that_ much.

Still wanted…

That’s right, he didn’t fucking learn, if Keith came up to him at that moment Lance would have given him anything. He would do it regardless of the moment actually.

Yet, this was all manageable. Lance was an expert at _managing_. It wasn’t until Allura’s annual gala that he came to a breaking point.

Allura threw parties like no one else, her gala however, was on another level. It was commonly known as one of the most prestigious events of the year and Lance remembered years prior, when he’d first entered the business world, vying for an invitation. Now he attended every year.

“How do I look?” Felicity asked giving a little twirl.

She was wearing a long red dress with a halter neckline, it was low cut and tight at the bodice down to her knees where it draped on the floor. Her golden brown hair was styled behind one ear with a sparkling pin and it tumbled down her shoulder.

“Beautiful,” Lance smiled, and it was no lie, she was breathtaking, always had been. When they’d first started dating Lance had to get used to the looks that followed her when she entered a room. Everyone wanted her, Lance was the lucky man who got her.

Lance held out his hand and she took it with a giddy smile, Felicity lived for these events. As he pulled her in her engagement ring flashed in the light and it tugged at something in Lance’s chest, he hesitated in the foyer for a moment and Felicity tugged at his arm.

“Come on, the driver’s waiting,”

Lance shook off the feeling and reached for the door “of course, don’t want to be late.”

She made a face “don’t even joke Lance,” she said an uncharacteristic whine in her voice “that would be embarrassing.”

The gala really did mean a lot to Felicity, Lance swore to himself to be on his best behavior as he locked the door behind them, no way would he fuck this up tonight.

—

“Don’t fuck up,” Adam whispered in Keith’s ear as they pulled up to the venue.

Keith frowned leaning forward and out of Damien’s grip, his fiancé didn’t even seemed to notice that his arm was no longer around Keith, he was too engrossed in his phone.

“What do you mean? I’ve done these a million times.”

“Yeah but you’ve been real bitchy lately, don’t run off fifteen minutes into it.” Adam said with a stern glare.

Shiro made a face “look while I second that, Adam don’t be mean to Keith. Keith, please behave, just put on a pleasant face and smile through the pain.”

Keith grimaced and Curtis snorted “but not like that…”

“Keith will be fine,” Damien spoke up absently, he didn’t look away from his phone “he’ll be with me all night, we’ll make the rounds. Plus, I’m pretty sure Allura sat us all together.”

Shiro’s brow furrowed “I have no idea if she did, I hope so. At mom’s last Christmas party I got sat with that guy from Galra & Co. he wasn’t my favorite.”

“Oh, poor Takashi.” Adam rolled his eyes and Curtis slapped him lightly.

“You both better behave too,” he said “you know people hate us.”

“Just because we’re so successful,” Adam crossed his arms.

“pretty sure it’s the polyamory.” Keith deadpanned.

Before any of the trio could retort the car came to a stop and Damien straighten up, finally slipping his phone into his pocket.

“Okay,” Shiro clapped his hands “showtime everyone, pleasant faces, be nice. Keith, I’m begging you to listen to us tonight, otherwise mom will have my head.”

“She can have it,” Keith grumbled but then the car door was opening and as they were exposed to the whirl of well-dressed people and flashes of cameras Keith became his public persona like a switch had been flipped.

_Shoulders back, chin up. Stand tall, but not too tall. Project confidence, and self-assuredness not narcissism. Leave the easygoing to Shiro, play to your seriousness. People are never going to see you as friendly so show your intelligence instead. You could beat any person in this room at whatever game they want to play, they know it. Make sure they respect this rather than resent it._

Even after all these years Keith still heard his mother’s whisper in his ear. He wasn’t like Shiro, Keith wasn’t born into this. He’d had to learn.

Keith would never have the perfectly crafted face of Melissa Shirogane, but he’d figured out well enough how to play the game.

Damien’s arm slipped easily around Keith’s waist in a possessive and public gesture that Keith had always hated. He couldn’t shrug it off however and Damien knew it so they entered the venue accompanied by the flash of cameras.

It wasn’t much better once they got inside, but at least the majority of the cameras were left behind them and Keith was able to step away from Damien a little. The noise faded to the low drone of polite chatter and they were escorted to their table.

Of course, once they knew their seats the couldn’t just sit down, Shiro beckoned to Keith and he sighed internally, knowing it was time to make the first rounds.

Goddamnit Keith hated socializing.

Nonetheless, he followed Shiro dutifully playing the part of his quiet little brother while Shiro took rein of the small talk. Eventually, once it was acceptable, they were able to go back to their table and Keith was ready to sit down and sulk as much as his brother would let him for the rest of the night.

That plan was foiled unfortunately, as they got back Keith was faced with who Allura had sat them with. Pidge was sitting there, folding her napkin into the shape of a bird, people were shooting her dirty looks but the thing about Pidge was that she didn’t give a fuck, nor did she have a stern older brother forcing her the be the perfect representation of her family. The Holts were well known for being the mad scientist types, and while some people were disapproving of their general laid back attitude, it was no surprise.

Pidge always made these things more bearable and when Keith spotted her he felt a surge of relief… which was immediately stamped when he took in the other guests at the table. Damien was conversing with Felicity Reynolds, who was decked out in a red dress. She clung to Lance’s arm and the three of them were chuckling at something.

“Ah, there you are,” Damien lifted is chin as he saw Keith approach “done making good with people?”

“Done forever,” Keith muttered not meeting Lance or Felicity’s eyes as he sat down.

He didn’t need to look up however to know Damien was rolling his eyes “quit being dramatic, you promised good behavior.”

“Actually I never agreed to that, I was simply _lectured on it_ ,” Keith remarked shooting a glare at Shiro who was looking around the room in search of his other halfs no doubt, and unaware.

“I hardly lectured you, Keith.” Okay, so maybe Shiro wasn’t _completely_ unaware.

“Adam did,”

“Relax,” he turned to face Keith and his look was clear, stop being difficult. Seeming satisfied that Keith got the message Shiro turned to Lance and Felicity “hey Lance, it’s great to see you. I assume this lovely lady is your fiancé?”

Lance grinned at Felicity and nodded “that’s right, Felicity this is Shiro,”

Shiro leaned forward to shake her hand “nice to meet you, I see you’ve already met Damien. This is my brother Keith, don’t let him scare you, he’s just being moody tonight,” he said raising an eyebrow at Keith.

Felicity laughed “oh it’s quite alright, we’ve met and he was perfectly lovely. So I’m not too scared.”

At that Lance stilled “you’ve met?”

She turned to look at Lance curiously taking in his tense expression “yes, I can’t remember the event but Allura introduced us, it can’t have been more than a year or so ago.”

“Well that’s great,” Shiro smiled “then we all get along.”

Pidge snorted speaking up for the first time “tell that to Keith and Lance, they fucking hate each other.”

“That’s… overstating things.” Shiro said in a weak attempt to smooth Pidge’s remark over.

“No it’s not,” Curtis said, suddenly appearing at Shiro’s shoulder “I thought last movie night at Allura’s was going to turn into a fist fight.”

Lance shifted uncomfortably and Keith turned red at the comment. Shiro turned to glare at his boyfriend for making things worse.

“Not true,” Keith defended “I wouldn’t punch anybody.”

Lance laughed sarcastically at that “oh sure, like I didn’t see you break Tommy Matten’s jaw.”

That made Keith freeze “excuse me, that was tenth grade!”

“Tenth grade?” Damien asked confused but neither of them deigned to respond.

“Lame excuse, _I_ didn’t punch anyone in tenth grade,” Lance said.

“Oh well good for you,” Keith rolled his eyes “pretty sure you couldn’t have punched anyone if you wanted too, you couldn’t have weighed more than a hundred pounds,” he scoffed “plus… Tommy was an asshole, he deserved it.”

“Of course he was, it was tenth grade! We were all assholes and…” Lance trailed off mid-sentence “I thought you didn’t remember me?”

“Huh?” Keith said confused.

“You just said I couldn’t have weighed more than a hundred pounds but _you_ said you didn’t remember me.”

“Oh,” Keith said with a frown “…I mean I didn’t at first, but then I met Hunk again and I remembered, you were always hanging out with him.”

“Oh,” Lance said and something in his eyes made Keith uneasy.

“I thought that was when you guys first met each other again,” Pidge said, always paying too much attention.”

“Uh… no?” Lance said but it came out more of a question than an answer, he cleared his throat “I mean, we were introduced, at a charity thing, like a year and a half ago. Or reintroduced, whatever.” He shrugged his eyes darting around the room like he was looking for an exit. He stood “Uh, I’ll be right back actually, I uh… need the bathroom.” He was gone before anyone could protest leaving them all in silence.

Felicity frowned and turned to watch Lance’s retreating back “Sorry about him,” she said shaking her head “I’m not sure what’s gotten into him. I didn’t realize you’d gone to high school with Lance, Keith,”

“Yeah, I did.” Keith said awkwardly, obviously, she’d already gathered that much.

They were saved from more awkward conversations on the matter when Adam came over with Allura and the topic changed as they greeted her.

Keith couldn’t help but replay the earlier interaction with Lance, god if he couldn’t handle a little bit of deflecting they were so screwed. It was only a matter of time.

Keith wasn’t exactly keen on his fiancé knowing he’d been sleeping another man while they were together.

—

If anyone asked, no, Lance had _not_ spent the last fifteen minutes staring in the mirror trying to pull himself together.

For all of his high hopes, tonight was not shaping to be as good as he’d hoped. God, something about Keith had always gotten under Lance’s skin, from his hatred in high school, lust a year prior, and now… back to hatred?

But that wasn’t right, it was less that Lance hated Keith and more that he hadn’t forgiven him. Lance was bitter and angry, but mostly, he was hurt.

Keith had just walked out, no proper explanation, no time for Lance to wrap his head around it. One moment they were in it together and the next Lance was sitting alone in a hotel room wondering how on earth he’d thrown away six months of his life for this man.

So yeah sue him, Lance was a little bruised by it. But it’d been a year, he was getting married in a matter of months, this was _no time_ to pine after his ex lover. He needed to get his shit together.

So Lance straighten up, smoothed out his suit and with a deep breath he stepped back out into the party. The rest of the night was not going to be as bad. Lance was determined.

It was only with that determination that he managed to refrain from picking anymore fights with Keith, in fact he was careful not to look over at all, Lance couldn’t stomach seeing Keith’s annoying fiancé all over him. Lance hadn’t even known that Damien was Keith’s fiancé at first, not until Shiro mentioned it, Lance wondered how long they’d even been engaged.

_Somehow_ , the night came to an end. People said their goodbyes, shook hands. Lance went through the motions, but all he was thinking about was making his getaway. Felicity had been eyeing him suspiciously the entire night and he knew he was in for concerned prying as to what was going on, but Lance knew he could play it all off as work stress.

It was on his way out of the bathroom before they departed Lance ran headlong into Keith.

The moment they registered each other they both froze. The hallway leading to the bathroom was dark and empty by this time of night, most people had already left, so it was just them. Alone and face to face for the first time since Keith broke things off.

Surprisingly it was Keith who spoke first “you need to get ahold of yourself,” he said and Lance felt his blood starting to boil.

“I need to get ahold of myself?” He scoffed “excuse me?”

“Yes,” Keith hissed “you were acting weird, everyone noticed it. If you don’t want to get caught up in a sex scandal that will ruin your career—“

“ _My_ career?” Lance cut him off “oh don’t pretend it’s my reputation you’re worried about, you’re just trying to cover your own ass.”

“I’m trying to spare both of us the embarrassment of a mistake getting out,”

Lance laughed bitterly “a mistake…” he repeated “look Keith, it wasn’t a fucking mistake, mistakes don’t last months. It was deliberate and probably stupid but we _both_ knew what we were doing. Just say you regret it and go for fucks sake,”

“I- I don’t regret it!” Keith said his voice rising.

“Then what the hell are you on about? You’re ashamed right?”

“Are you not? Not even a little? it wasn’t a good thing to do!”

“Of course I’m ashamed, but I lived my shame, I told Felicity and I paid for it!”

Keith froze at that his face going white “you… you told Felicity, she knows?” There was a note of panic in his voice and Lance tried to push away the stupid urge to sooth it.

“I told her I cheated,” he said exasperatedly “she doesn’t know it was you,”

Keith’s brow furrowed “I feel like that’s worse, I think she likes me.”

Lance didn’t know how to respond to that “well your fiancé is boring by the way, when did you even get engaged?”

Keith’s eyes hardened again and he crossed his arms “well then it’s a good thing you’re not marrying him, and not very long ago. Not that it’s any of your business.”

“I thought you didn’t like boring,” Lance said accusingly.

“Maybe I just said that to get in your pants,”

Lance rolled his eyes “right, do you honestly expect me to believe that? What you think we had an affair spanning _months_ and I didn’t know a thing about you? I know you hate boring, I know you hate your life, I know you wanted more. That’s what we were right? Something exciting, to spice up your life?”

“No! Yes, I don’t know!” Keith said heatedly his face red.

His expression struck something in Lance, the uncertainty written between the lines of Keith’s anger. He didn’t understand their relationship anymore than Lance did, it was messy and wrong, and neither of them knew of it’d been worth it.

“Fine, Lance. Is that what you want me to say? That I used you? I wanted something exciting and you were there! That’s all it was so get your head out of your ass and stop putting our reputations in jeopardy.”

Lance didn’t think Keith really meant that but it still hurt. He shook his head “fuck you Keith,” and then turned stalking away, he was getting the hell _out of here_.

—

When Lance was gone Keith exhaled tiredly leaning his head against the wall. Lance was angry, it was understandable. Yet, Keith was angry that Lance was angry… this was a mess and he had a bad feeling it was only going to get worse.

He needed to alienate Lance completely, push him away. Make him uncomfortable even looking Keith’s way, because if he got too close Keith didn’t think he’d be able to control himself.

For a brief second, an image flashed through Keith’s head. Him on Lance’s arm at one of these stupid events rather than Damien’s. Kissing him in front of their friends, going on dates, coming home to him. Letting Lance hold him after a long day.

If Keith could have changed something he would have broken things off with Damien the first time he kissed Lance in the bar bathroom. He would have had Lance do the same with Felicity. It was a flawed thought however, Lance clearly loved her, he’d even told her he’d cheated. Keith was just a lapse in Lance’s judgment, he’d always be second to Felicity.

Taking a deep breath Keith straightened, he angrily wiped the stray tear that had escaped. Keith was a grown fucking man, he was not going to cry over a guy.

He took a deep breath, steadying himself, and exited the hallway. Keith tried his best to appear normal as he approached Damien and the trio.

“I’m ready to go,” he said to his group, turning towards the door.

Shiro however didn’t take a step, grabbing Keith’s wrist to keep him in place too.

“Are you okay?” He asked quietly, eyes flitting over Keith’s face.

“I’m fine,” Keith grumbled trying to pull away.

“You’ve been crying,” Shiro said quietly and at that even Damien who’d been tapping his foot impatiently stilled.

“No,”

“Yes, I’ve seen it all Keith, I know what you look like when you’ve been crying.”

“Look, I’m not your baby brother anymore Shiro, I don’t need you looking out for me. Everything is fine.”

“No it’s not, it hasn’t been for awhile. You’ve been acting weird ever since we met Lance. I saw him leave the hallway, we’re you fighting with him again?”

“We weren’t—“

“Then what, Keith?” Shiro cut him off “What is your deal with him? I’ve never seen you so agitated by a person. And don’t try to tell me it was the forgetting him in high school thing, because clearly you remember him.”

“I- it was high school I don’t know, we have a history!”

“From high school? So what did you lie about forgetting him, because you seemed to remember him pretty well.”

“No, I didn’t remember him when Allura introduced us, years ago. I remembered eventually. Look he hated me in school, he still does I guess.” Keith tried for a shrug but it came off a little stiff

“So why does that bother you?”

The question was simple enough but it formed a lump in his throat. Did Lance really hate him now? The thought _did_ bother him in a way he wished it didn’t.

“I’m not that person anymore,” Keith said after a moment, he needed to build a new narrative “I was different in high school, we didn’t get along at all. Lance hates that person, but it’s not me.”

At that Shiro sighed shaking his head “Keith, all the people who matter _know that_. You don’t need to prove it to anyone. Much less Lance, either he’ll see it eventually and you guys can become friends, or at least _friendly_ … or he won’t and that’s not your responsibility.”

Keith nodded, he felt bad. All the talk of not being who he was in high school, Keith felt the closest to that person he had in a long time. Scared, manipulative.

It was for Lance’s sake, Keith was doing this for him. Lance had a reputation, even when Keith tried not to hear it, people talked. He was known as the best over at Garrison, funny, smart, talented, kind. People admired him as a good man who put everything into his work and his life. Sure Keith had heard a fair share of people say he was a bit too enthusiastic or that his personality was too much for them, but even someone who didn’t want to be his friend couldn’t deny him the respect he’d earned. Everyone had something good to say about him, yet Lance didn’t even seem to know this. He didn’t realize what he’d lose if news of their affair ever got out.

So sure, maybe Keith was being manipulative, but it was for the best, right?

—

If Keith had memorized Lance’s phone number it wasn’t on purpose. He’d never put Lance’s contact in his phone for fear of being caught, so it was just out of practicality that he’d memorized it.

**I may have implied to Shiro that we actually interacted and school and didn’t get along. Just for future reference. You should probably play along. I know you don’t believe you have that much to lose, I’m begging you to trust me on this.**

**(310) 448-9424:**

**Keith**

It wasn’t a question, Lance knew who it was. Keith frowned at his screen. The little dots indicating Lance was typing popped up and Keith paused watching them. After a moment though they disappeared and he watched his phone for a good two minutes, before tossing it angrily on the bed.

He stepped back running his hands through his hair. God, if for once in his life Lance could just _agree_ to something it would make this entire thing so much easier.

His phone dinged suddenly and he froze stepping towards it timidly, before snatching it up.

**(310) 448-9424:**

**Fine. I’ll play your fucking game. But ONLY because i know if it gets out it’ll hurt felicity.**

**(310) 448-9424:**

**It’s not to spare my reputation or whatever the fuck u think**

**(310) 448-9424:**

**No more public fighting**

Keith sighed, that was probably the best he was going to get.

**Fine. Deal. But you’re the one who needs to stop picking fights, you’ve been purposely getting on my nerves I know it. Not sure what you’re trying to achieve but stop.**

**(310) 448-9424:**

**Says u**

Keith groaned, using every inch of his willpower not to respond. He deleted the exchange from his messages inbox. Just in time, because Damien walked into the bedroom stopping when he took in Keith’s expression.

He frowned looking his fiancé over for a moment before turning to the dresser and pulling out a t-shirt.

“You never tell me anything,” he said not facing Keith as he unbuttoned his dress shirt and slipped the t-shirt over his head.

“Not true,” Keith said distantly.

The had a variation of this conversation every four to five months, only to brush it under the rug like it wasn’t an issue every time.

Keith would insist that he just wasn’t an emotionally vulnerable person, Damien would say that Keith told Shiro things, then Keith would say that was different.

This time however, it took a turn.

“I don’t like the Lance guy. I don’t care what Shiro says, you’re not going to become his friend. Stay away from him.”

Keith bristled. Normally he’d argue, tell Damien he had no right to tell Keith what he could and couldn’t do, which would lead to a screaming match where Damien inevitably threw something and Keith told him to get out.

Tonight, they were straying from the usual script however, so Keith just grabbed a blanket and a pillow.

“I’m sleeping on the couch,” he said pushing past Damien and shutting the bedroom door with more force than necessary.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, I finished writing this fic!! it still needs editing but I’ll edit as I post chapter by chapter. I really like the whole story and I hope you guys will too!


	5. forever is the sweetest con

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from cowboy like me by Taylor Swift

**  
Chapter five: forever is the sweetest con**

The next few months passed in a blur. Keith didn’t text Lance again, not that Lance expected him to but still he held his breath. The way his heart had skipped a beat when the notification popped up was reminiscent of another time.

Despite his dislike of the plan, Lance did as Keith had asked. They were able to keep all arguments to the occasional petty bickering while in front of their friends. Other than that, they didn’t interact.

Things came to head though when Pidge came up with the brilliant idea of a weekend away.

Her parents had a cabin on the lake and it was decided that they would all go spend a couple days there. Lance was looking forward to getting out of the city, however he was nervous about whether he’d be able to refrain from punching Keith if he acted infuriating over the weekend. So far Lance had only barely managed not to lash out, but Keith got on his nerves. Lance wondered how he’d once enjoyed spending time with the guy, his senses must have been clouded by the sex or whatever. Because truthfully, Keith was a downer. He never seemed to want to be there whenever he was invited a long and he spent half the time glaring at anyone who dared look at him.

“Help me bring the food in,” Pidge said tossing her keys at Lance. He and Felicity had carpooled with her over to the lake.

Lance managed to catch the keys as they headed towards his face “geez, a little warning. You could have taken my eye out.”

“Don’t be a baby,” Pidge rolled her eyes as Lance opened up the trunk and started unloading groceries.

Lance grabbed a handful of bags and headed up the porch, holding the screen door behind him for Pidge. They dumped the bags on the floor and started filling the shelves and fridge in a comfortable silence. There was something about the cabin that always reminded Lance of home. Every summer since third grade Lance had accompanied Hunk and his family on their summer trip to the lake. Sure it was a much shittier rented cabin and smaller lake than where Pidge’s cabin resided, but the feeling was the same. It was like another plane of existence where none of life’s usual troubles mattered. No work, no worries, you were away from the rest of the world. Lance loved that.

Except one of his worries followed him this time. He was reminded of this as the door opened suddenly and a group of his chattering friends, plus Keith piled in.

“Hi guys!” Pidge called from the kitchen.

Peering around the corner Shiro waved “hey Pidge, thanks for having us!”

“No problem,” she shrugged “normally I just bring Lance and Hunk but they get boring too fast. Figured since we’re all spending more time together as a group this would be fun.”

“Hey,”Lance protested with a frown.

“It’s true,” Hunk said entering the kitchen and immediately taking the bag Lance was holding and helping him put food away because he was just that kind of person.

“I mean ok, but only because it’s been three of us for so long,” Lance admitted.

After that, Pidge left to go give everyone a tour of the house and Hunk remained with Lance to finish the groceries.

“How are you going to hold up with Keith this weekend?” Hunk asked.

“Huh?” Lance said folding up the bags and stuffing them all together.

“I mean, it’ll be tougher than usual to avoid him right?”

“I- who said I avoid him?”

Hunk turned to Lance with raised eyebrows “c’mon Lance, I know you two had a thing. You don’t need to play dumb.”

“Who told you that?” Lance asked his heart freezing in his chest.

“No one, stop panicking man. I just figured it out. You told me about cheating on Felicity, you didn’t mention you were in love with him though,”

“Wha- no, what!” Lance sputtered, his mouth open in shock.

To make the it even worse Pidge’s tour led the group to the kitchen at that moment.

“This is the kitchen,” she was saying as they entered “it’s stocked, we just bought a bunch of food. I know Hunk’s gonna make us some great dinners. It has a microwave, a coffee pot, and apparently a Lance who’s currently having a heart attack,” she said dryly surveying the scene. “Hunk what did you do?”

“I think I may have approached a subject Lance is in deep denial about.” Hunk shrugged patting Lance on the back.

“Fuck you, I’m not in denial!”

“That sounds like denial to me.” Pidge said before turning to Hunk “Did you ask him about that thing I told you not to ask about yet?” She said narrowing her eyes at him.

“Uh… maybe?” Hunk said guilty.

“Okay, firstly I cannot believe you two were conspiring against me,” Lance said pointing at them accusingly “secondly I’m not in denial and this conversation is over.”

“It wasn’t conspiring,” Hunk defended.

“Well, it kind of was.” Pidge added unhelpfully “but only because you didn’t tell us anything so we had to take it into our own hands.”

Lance glared before deciding his best plan of action in the given situation was to retreat “I’m going to check if we got all the groceries,” he said grabbing Pidge’s keys from the counter.

“We did!” She called after him but he ignored her letting out a breath as the screen door slammed shut behind him.

This was going to be a _long_ weekend.

—

After dinner that night most of Lance’s friends moved to the living room to play some board games and hang out but Lance needing some space started towards the door.

“You don’t want to play?” Felicity asked grabbing his arm as he left.

“Uh, next game okay?”

She nodded and Lance gave her a quick kiss on the lips before heading towards the porch. However, when he got there, it was already occupied.

Lance stopped dead at the sight of Keith’s outline in the dark, lit only by the moon and the faint glow of the cigarette between his fingers.

Lance was assaulted by unwanted memories of the taste of smoke on Keith’s tongue and he shook his head trying to brush them off. Every sensible part of him told Lance to leave, but if Lance led with his sensibilities he wouldn’t even be here today. So stupidly, he stepped forward.

“Thought you were quitting,” Lance said sitting down beside Keith and letting his feet dangle over the side of the porch.

Keith startled at Lance’s appearance, his eyes round and glittering in the dark. He stilled for a moment watching Lance before he turned again, eyes on the vast quiet of the lake before them.

“I was,” Keith responded eventually “but I didn’t,”

“Clearly,” Lance said rolling his eyes.

Keith frowned but didn’t respond, they sat there in silence, punctuated only by the sound of nature around them.

After awhile Keith put out his used cigarette and looked over at Lance again “what are you doing?”

The question was broad and it could have applied to a million things between them but Lance took it to mean at that moment, regardless of the weight on it “sitting,”

“Next to me?”

“Is that a crime?”

“Lance, normally you don’t even _look_ at me.”

If Lance didn’t know better he’d think that Keith almost seemed pained by the fact, like it hurt him to never command Lance’s gaze. Yet, despite every piece of knowledge on their situation that told Lance this wasn’t the case, he _knew_ Keith. Knew how he sounded when he was happy, hurt, angry. He knew every tone of the other man’s voice in a way he’d often wished he could un-know after they’d broken up.

Propelled by some primal and no doubt masochistic part of himself Lance reached out and tilted Keith’s jaw so they were face-to-face. Keith trembled under Lance’s fingers and he was reminded of the way Keith despite his fire and nerve, always ended up submitting to Lance eventually. Falling apart beneath Lance’s touch every time.

“I’m looking at you now, that’s what you want isn’t it?”

“Like you’re one to talk,” Keith hissed but his voice was weak and it lacked his usual bite.

Lance leaned forward, his lips brushing Keith ear, his ex-lover’s breath warm on his neck “if I valued my life a little less I’d kiss you right now,” he whispered into Keith’s ear. Lance pulled away slowly, letting the words sink in before standing up and brushing off his jeans.

“Well,” Lance said, his normal voice a loud contrast to the words he’d just whispered “I hear they’re going to play monopoly inside. I’m going to join, don’t sit out here all night.”

And with that Lance used every bit of willpower he had to leave Keith sitting there, his breath heavy and eyes unfocused.

As Lance stepped inside he tried not to let it show how affected he was too.

—

What _the fuck_ was Lance playing at? Keith thought to himself angrily as he got ready for bed that night. He stared at his reflection in the mirror, the circles under his eyes were darker than usual. Keith had been stressed about this trip, it was a small mercy that Damien had been too busy to come because Keith didn’t know how he was supposed to act normal right now.

The memories which usually looped in Keith’s head featured the distant impression of Lance’s lips, of his breath on Keith’s skin, now however, Keith could feel Lance’s closeness in fresh detail. The smell of his cologne, the warmth of his skin.

The thought of it made Keith dizzy.

What the hell was wrong with him? He was acting like a love sick teenager, it was disgusting.

—

“Oh no,” Allura said with a shake of her head “I’m very much unforgiving of it. My ex Lotor cheated on me. As soon as a found out I dumped him.”

The second day at the lake, it was lunchtime and the topic of conversation had worryingly turned to a debate on everyone’s stance on cheating.

“That’s valid, I remember Lotor, he wasn’t my favorite of your partners.” Hunk frowned “but I think it depends on the situation right? Because for example, say someone is in a relationship they can’t leave and they cheat? That could happen right? Also I know some people with certain mental illnesses have a propensity for cheating.”

“That’s true,” Shiro nodded “but I mean if your partner cheated would you forgive them? I mean I love both Curtis and Adam so much, but I’m not sure I’d be able to forgive them if they ever cheated.”

Adam made a face “we’re never going to cheat on you babe, but that’s fair. I don’t think I’d be able to either.”

“Agreed. I mean I understand what Hunk’s saying about the situation but regardless of what’s going on it’s never _okay_ to cheat, right? I mean why would you even do that to your significant other?” Curtis said

“Because you don’t love them enough,” Keith spoke up, once all eyes were on him he froze realizing what he was saying but it was too late to back down now “I mean, that’s the only explanation for it. If you loved them enough the thought would never even cross your mind.”

“Really?” Shiro raised an eyebrow “so you’re saying every single time someone cheated they didn’t really love their partner?”

“I- no, no. You can love them plenty, but it’s just not enough if you cheat on them regardless of that love.”

Felicity stood suddenly and the room got quiet “uh, I’m gonna get some air,” she said her voice shaky and she turned and fled.

_Of course_ , she knew Lance had cheated on her and here Keith was spouting all this shit implying Lance didn’t love her enough. Keith felt bad, but that didn’t mean he didn’t still believe what he was saying.

“You know what, that’s some bullshit coming from _you_ of all people,” Lance said breaking the uncomfortable silence.

“Me of all people?” Keith repeated “what the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“You and I know you’re just as much of a cheater as I am, You don’t see me walking around telling Damien you don’t love him enough!”

“But I don’t!” Keith said angrily and that put Lance off, his mouth fell open in surprise “c’mon, imagine you have this perfect relationship, your partner clicks with you instantly, you can’t keep your hands off each other, you get them, they get you. They know you better than anyone without even trying, you’re never uncomfortable with them or scared to ask them for anything. Maybe you don’t like all the same things or act the same way but you respect each other’s differences. Would you even _risk_ giving that up by cheating? Because I certainly wouldn’t.”

The look on Lance’s face was a mix of disbelief and uncertainty because they both knew what relationship Keith was describing and it wasn’t one either of their fiancés were a part of.

“I wouldn’t,” Lance said after a moment “if something like that was attainable. But it’s unrealistic.”

Adam frowned at that “I’m sorry what? I have no idea what the two of you are talking about but I have to cut in because what _the fuck_ , that’s not unrealistic Lance, that’s just a decent relationship. I found that not just once, but twice.” He said gesturing to his partners “it sounds to me like you’ve spent a long time settling.”

Lance didn’t have a reply to that…

—

“So, you cheated on Damien?” Shiro asked, he was sitting on the bed in Keith’s room, watching while he put his stuff away.

“Yes,” Keith said simply, purposely not facing his brother.

“When?”

“A while ago,”

Shiro was quiet after that and once Keith was done cleaning up he finally looked at him. When Keith turned Shiro was watching him with serious eyes.

“What?” Keith asked with a sigh.

“How did Lance know?”

“Know what?”

“That you cheated,”

Keith didn’t answer. He moved to the bed lying down. After a moment Shiro shifted to lie down next to him. Drawing his own conclusion from Keith’s silence.

“Tell me about it,” Shiro said gently.

Keith didn’t respond immediately, taking a second to gather his thoughts before speaking “I didn’t know that I’d never been in love… until I fell in love with Lance.” The last part came out choked and Keith wished he could hide the tremor in his voice, but Shiro knew him too well. “I remember, we were at a hotel and Lance was asleep next to me, I was watching the clock and suddenly it hit me, I was in love with him. I… I thought I was in love with Damien before, but whatever I feel for Damien isn’t even half as life shattering as my feelings for Lance were—“ he broke off “ _are_ ,” Keith corrected. “I ended things with Lance not long after that. I was scared of it I guess.”

“So you went back to Damien? Tried to forget about Lance?”

“He had Felicity, and I know he actually loves her, maybe not as much as he should, but he does. If she’s what he wants, I want him to be happy. I couldn’t let him risk everything for an _affair.”_

“Does Lance agree with that? He was okay with you trying to spare him?”

Keith laughed bitterly at that “I’ve been making him play along to cover our affair up, now that we’re all friends or whatever. He doesn’t appreciate it, but he goes with it.”

Shiro nodded “this is bad Keith—“

“ _I know_ , I fucked up, okay?”

“That’s not what I mean, Keith. Obviously I think cheating was wrong, but you know it as much as I do. I don’t need to tell you. You’ve put yourself into an impossible situation. I’d always had my suspicions but now it’s clear you don’t love Damien, at least not as much as you should for someone you’re marrying. I’m not sure how to sit here and watch _you_ throw your life away.”

“It’s what I have, Shiro.”

“It doesn’t have to be. There’s someone out there for you, and maybe it isn’t Lance, but someone you’ll love just as much, if not more than him. You shouldn’t settle for Damien.”

“Isn’t it too late?” Keith whispered.

“Absolutely not, I’m not saying it’ll be pretty. But if you’re not one-hundred percent sure, then you shouldn’t marry him.”

“I’m not even ten percent sure,” Keith said with a broken laugh.

“Then think about that,” Shiro sat up ruffling Keith’s hair “I’m gonna go to bed, come see us if you need to, okay?”

Keith gave him a half smile “okay,” he agreed. “Don’t tell Adam and Curtis please, at least not tonight?”

“Okay, but you should tell them eventually.

“I will,” Keith paused sitting up before reaching out for Shiro, his brother immediately wrapped his arms tightly around Keith.

“Love you,” Keith whispered.

“I love you too,”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can’t tell if I dislike this chapter or I just hate myself and therefore this chapter by extension. I’m sorry I’m completely unstable, hopefully the three people who are reading this fic enjoy it, however. 
> 
> Love y’all <3


	6. that ain’t my merlot on his mouth

**Chapter six: Chapter six: that ain’t my Merlot on his mouth**

“Are you okay?” Lance asked but his words fell flat.

Felicity had her back turned towards him while she braided her hair in the mirror, she’d already been asleep when he’d gone to bed last night and she’d been in the shower when he got up. They hadn’t talked and for once, Felicity hadn’t seemed like she wanted to.

“Do you think it’s true?” She said eyes fixed on her own face in the mirror.

“What’s true?”

“What Keith was saying yesterday,”

Lance froze unsure as how to answer, “I don’t know,” Lance said slowly.

Felicity scoffed, an unusual expression for her, “well great, that clears things up.” She tied off her braid and spun to face Lance “look we can do the communication and the couple’s therapy but it’s not going to work if you’re still keeping things from me.”

“Who said I was keeping things from you?”

“I can tell, Lance. I’m not an idiot. Nyma said to give it time, that it was important you’d even come forward and told me you cheated. I thought you’d open up about it eventually, but you didn’t and I don’t want a one-sided relationship!”

“I… what are you saying? You want to break things off.”

“No I want you to be honest with me!” she sighed rubbing bridge over her nose and taking a deep breath “look, we’re on vacation right now, we’re going home tonight, we can talk about this then.” She said in a calmer voice, and with that she tossed her braid over her shoulder and left Lance sitting there, now dreading going home.

—

Here’s the thing, it had to get worse from there. Because _of course_ it did. Nothing could ever just start going uphill, nope!

Lance had come to the conclusion that Keith was an idiot, and he was an idiot. It really was just stupidity after stupidity.

Keith liked to film things, it was something Lance remembered about him. It’d seem uncharacteristically sentimental of him when Lance first witnessed the habit. However, eventually Lance realized that it was _just_ like him. Keith was afraid, nothing felt permanent to him. He was ready to lose everything at any moment, a mentality caused by his early years in foster care, Lance assumed. So Keith recorded things because he wanted to freeze his life, have a scrap of it for when it fell apart.

In the afternoon on their last day at the lake, Keith took out his phone to record. The trio was unfazed by this, no doubt used to it. But Pidge had been curious and asked about which led to Keith explaining his hobby. That caused requests to see some of a Keith’s video which is how they wound up with his laptop plugged into the TV watching various home videos. Most of them were of the trio, a couple featured Keith’s parents and Allura and Romelle. They were cute and everyone got a kick out of it, especially videos that featured the trio’s antics.

However the stupidity came when a video of Shiro’s birthday ended and the next one began playing.

It started with a shot of Keith’s feet while he fumbled with his phone, there was a shaky close up of sand before Keith apparently straighten up and it panned to show a shot of the ocean.

_“What do you think?”_ Keith in the video said his voice fond in a way Lance had forgotten the sound of.

There was a laugh off camera and Keith turned his phone to follow the sound. That was the moment when Lance practically died.

Because standing in front of Keith, framed by the ocean behind them, Lance recognized himself.

_“Well, the beaches are better in Cuba…”_

Behind the camera Keith groaned _“oh my god_ , _”_

_“Hey, hey, I hadn’t finished.”_ On camera Lance waved his arms _“this one is pretty nice as far as America goes. Nice job.”_

_“Was that an actual compliment Lance McLain?”_

_“No, fuck you._ ” Despite his words Lance was smiling his eyes alight, it was obvious he didn’t mean it.

Keith’s hand appeared in the frame held out towards Lance and he took it letting Keith pull him in. The camera flipped to show the both of them, Lance’s arm around Keith’s waist. Keith’s cheeks were flushed from the sun and his hair was messy, he looked gorgeous, apparently Lance in the video thought so to because he was looking at Keith with an expression that could only be explained as lovesick.

Finally, in the present Keith seemed to come to his senses because he moved forward suddenly slamming his laptop shut just before the part of the video where Lance remembered Keith kissed him.

“Um, th-that’s enough of that,” Keith stuttered looking completely uncomfortable as he unplugged his laptop and tucked it under his arm.

No one spoke. Allura was looking between Keith and Lance in confusion and Shiro was frowning. It was Adam who said something first.

“When was that?” He asked.

Lance caught Keith’s eye and the came an unspoken agreement, all the while Lance was aware of the way they were being watched.

“Uh I don’t know exactly, over a year ago.” Keith said quietly.

Adam seemed to come to a conclusion as to what that meant his eyebrows shooting up in surprise, unfortunately Felicity came to the same conclusion because she stood up suddenly.

“It was him,” she slapped her forehead “oh my god, of course it was. It makes sense. What Allura introduced you and you hit it off instead of supposedly not talking again until Pidge’s party like you pretended?” She shook her head “were you friends? Did you just fail to mention that Lance or did you immediately go to sleeping together?”

“Felicity, maybe we can talk outside—“

“No, Lance,” she cut him off “look, I didn’t need the details but when we started running in the same circles as your ex love affair you should have told me! You didn’t even need to give me the whole story, but apparently another thing you failed to mention was that you were in love with him!”

Lance couldn’t even formulate a proper denial at this point so he just nodded numbly “okay,”

“Okay?” she repeated in disbelief “great, thanks. I need some air, we can talk later Lance.” And with that she departed.

“Oh my god,” Curtis said in the awkwardness that followed. That pretty much summed it up.

“I can’t believe you had that video,” Lance said to Keith exasperatedly.

“Hey, it’s not my fault you lied to your fiancé,” Keith said defensively.

“So did you!” Lance pointed out.

“Yeah, but I’m dumping him anyway. Plus I’m an asshole, you’re better.”

“You always fucking say that,”

“Because all I’ve been doing is trying to spare you!”

“I didn’t need you to do that,”

“But _I_ needed to,” Keith said earnestly and Lance could see something in the glimmer of his eyes that Lance wasn’t sure he was ready to face.

Lance frowned “wait you’re dumping Damien, since when?”

“I- last night,”

“Huh,” was all Lance could say.

After all this time, Keith was really leaving Damien? Lance didn’t like the hope that gave him.

—

The car ride home was uncomfortable to say the least, Pidge took one look between Lance and Felicity before turning up the music and pretending they weren’t there for the rest of the drive.

When they got home that night, the couple unpacked their bags and ate in silence. By eleven P.M Lance was starting to think that they wouldn’t talk about it tonight after all until Felicity stood from her spot at the table and closed her laptop before joining Lance on the couch.

“Okay,” she took a deep breath “I’ve had time to gather my thoughts.” Lance nodded, happy to let her start off “I think we should hold off on the wedding firstly, regardless of where this conversation goes. I still believe we can make this work, but it’ll take a lot more on your part. Honesty, more couples therapy,”

“Felicity,” Lance began and her face fell, it seemed she had a feeling what Lance was going to say “you’ve put so much work into our relationship, you’ve been so patient and forgiving, and I _do_ love you. But I don’t deserve that. I was never willing to put in the work. I should have, but I can’t change how I acted in the past or how I feel. As much as I want to work with you and move past this, that’s the easy way out. I may have fucked up, but _I do_ love you enough to know you deserve better. You should have a relationship with someone who never even considers cheating on you. And yeah, all relationships take work, but it shouldn’t take this much.”

Felicity wiped a tear away “so what, are you going to go back to Keith?”

“I- Felicity, I don’t think that’s even in the cards. This isn’t about Keith, sure it was my affair that put all this in motion, but at the end of the day I treated you badly. I’d be holding you back by marrying you, I’d never be fully happy and neither would you because no matter what I say or how much time passes you’ll resent me for not loving you enough.”

For a moment Felicity looked angry, like she wanted to lash out but after a tense second she deflated. “You’re probably right, a part of me knows that,” she said quietly “I’m also angry though, you’ve put me through a lot Lance.”

“I know, I’m sorry,”

They both knew the words weren’t enough but Felicity was one of the best people Lance knew, she was kind and caring, she did everything in life with her heart. “I forgive you. I know I shouldn’t, god Nyma would be pissed. I do though, and I want you to be happy even if that isn’t with me. Don’t get me wrong, I think I’ll be angry for you for awhile, but this was probably a long time coming wasn’t it?”

“I think so,” Lance said quietly.

Felicity nodded before leaning back into the couch, they sat there for the rest of the night, side by side one last time.

—

Melissa Shirogane was a particular woman, she was strict and often unforgiving. She expected nothing but the best for her children. She was often referred to as uptight or sometimes more insulting synonyms by rivals in the workplace. Because a woman who’d risen to the top of the business world all on her own, was generally hated. She was called cutthroat, vicious, unfeeling.

She wasn’t those things exactly, she was brilliant, meticulous, and driven. All things that would have been praised by any man running a company. It was in spite of everything that succeeded.

Someone like that however, wasn’t exactly the most loving mother. Shiro got all of his warmth and kindness from their father who was very much the kind, old professor. It took Keith a long time to understand that his mother expressed her love differently.

It was in her desire for her children to do well, in the way she nit picked their lives and pushed them. How when Keith was young and used to have nightmares she would sit in his room and show him blueprints and projects she was working on. Most mothers would have sung a lullaby, but it was Mellisa Shirogane’s way of showing she cared.

It was in the way she insisted they have dinner together as family at least once a month. Even though they were all busy and rarely in the same place at the same time, they had to have that meal no matter what.

Still, even though Keith was an adult now and knew all this, that didn’t make the monthly dinners any more pleasant. Keith loved his mother, but they didn’t get along. His father used to say it was because they were alike, Melissa saw herself in Keith, even from the first time they met. Regardless of the reason, Keith often balked under his mother’s scrutiny and it wasn’t unusual for him to lose his temper.

“How’s Damien,” Keith’s mother asked over dinner, her eyes sharp and knowing.

Keith hadn’t broken up with him yet, it’d only been two days since he’d decided to and Damien had been out of town. Keith had wanted to do it over text but Shiro had talked him out of it.

“Well…” Keith said unsure how to answer “he’s good?” His voiced raised at the end of the sentence and Keith cursed the way it came out like a question.

“Is that so, or are you guessing?”

“Uh- he’s away right now, but I assume he’s fine. He hasn’t said otherwise.”

“Hm,” was his mother’s response and Keith shifted in his seat.

Shiro caught his eye shooting Keith and look and he knew what he was trying to say. Tell his parents now rather than put it off, rip off the bandage.

“Actually,” Keith said carefully “I’m going to break up with him,”

His father’s eyebrows shot up at that but his mother remained unflinchingly still.

“Why’s that?” She asked after a moment.

“I…” Keith looked to Shiro who reached out his hand under the table to squeeze Keith’s reassuringly. “I cheated on him last year, I don’t really love him… so I’m going to end things.”

“You cheated?” Keith’s mother said icily “I expected better from you. However,” her voice softened ever so slightly “you should be happy. So if he’s not making you happy then you shouldn’t marry him. It’ll save you from an unfortunate divorce later in life.”

Keith almost laughed at her response it was so very Melissa Shirogane. “That’s true,” he nodded. The conversation moved on from there to prying into Shiro’s relationship and Keith let out a breath, glad that was over.

—

Keith had always been a troublesome kid. He’d been abandoned at four years old, his father had left him at home to go to work and never come back. Keith was on his own for a couple months after that until he was discovered alone on the streets, too young to even tell you his father’s name. With his dad’s disappearance and his birth mother never in the picture, Keith was put into foster care. No one wanted him, to was too much of a “troubled child” he picked fights, stole things and made a mess wherever he went. He was referred to as violent, aggressive, rebellious, rude. The list went on. None of that magically changed when he wound up in the Shirogane’s care when he was eleven. He threw tantrums and picked fights, but unlike the other families he’d stayed with, they didn’t get rid of him. There were _years_ of fighting to the point where in high school Keith’s behavior got so bad that he was expelled from his fancy private school. That was how he’d ended up at Valley High, his parents had thought it’d be a more comfortable environment for him, even though they were appalled by the public school education.

Valley High wasn’t his favorite place, but people actually respected him there, in private schools full of other kids with rich parents Keith was the runt. But at Valley High he was cool, sure he was still pretty much an outcast and he still acted out, but he was able to get through the next three years of high school without too many incidents. By senior year Keith had pretty much stopped getting into fights and skipping classes and graduated at the top of his class.

Keith knew he’d put his parents and Shiro through hell. He couldn’t count the amount of nights he’d sat on the stairs listening to his mother ask what they were supposed to do. Eventually Keith grew up though, realized that this was his family and they loved him whether he felt like he deserved it or not.

He wasn’t especially close to his parents, but he still loved them, and he had Shiro. Shiro was Keith’s person and he didn’t think he trusted anyone in the world more than his brother.

However, Keith still had issues. He was pretty sure it was some leftover trauma that had led him into this situation with Lance, that kept him with Damien so long. Shiro had always suggested that Keith go to therapy, but he’d had bad experiences with it in middle school. Now though, he was wondering if it might be worth another try. Maybe it was time to get his shit together?

—

“You’re breaking up with me?” Damien asked dumbstruck.

Keith resisted the urge to roll his eyes, he’d made it _pretty_ clear “yes,”

“I can’t believe this!” Damien said throwing his hands up “y-you cheated on me and now _you’re_ the one ending things?”

“Uh… yes? Look we can start over and I can let you do the breaking up if you’d like,”

“No! Oh my god you’re disgusting you know that? You’re a slut!”

Keith flinched but he’d expected Damien to react badly “I’m sorry, it was wrong of me. But yes, we’re done you can leave now, I’ll have your things sent to you.”

Damien just stood there for a moment before turning with a scoff “you’re unbelievably,” he said “fuck you.” He left slamming the front door behind him and Keith winced.

Okay, that could have gone better… Keith shook his head, but at least it was over. Laughter bubbled up in his chest suddenly and he laughed full of giddiness. Oh god, he was free…

—

**Keith:**

**Can we meet? I want to talk to you about something.**

Lance had been staring at the text message going on two hours now, every time he started to type a response he deleted it before he hit send. The simple answer was yes, but Lance couldn’t make himself just type it.

It’d been two months since Lance broken up with Felicity, he had mostly kept to himself to avoid gossip since then and he hadn’t seen or heard from Keith. There was a rumor going around that he’d broken it off with Damien, but it was unconfirmed and Lance was too afraid to ask if he’d actually done it.

Finally Lance typed out “okay” hesitating for a moment longer before gathering up his nerve and hitting send. He held his breath but Keith’s reply was almost instant.

**Keith:**

**The park on 5 th, tomorrow at 6pm? **

**Sure that’s good with me, I’ll see u then ig.**

Lance replied before shutting down his texting app with a sigh, he was a bit afraid of what Keith was going to say.

—

Lance caught sight of Keith immediately, sitting on a bench in front of the duck pond, his dark hair shining in the sun. He was dressed casually in jeans and a black t-shirt which Lance had always liked him in.

“Uh, hi,” Lance greeted taking the spot next to him.

“Hey,” Keith shot Lance a half smile.

“You wanted to meet?”

“Yeah,” Keith rubbed the back of his neck turning to face Lance “wasn’t sure if you’d show honestly.”

“I had second thoughts,” Lance admitted “but I wanted to keep my word.”

“Thank you, for coming then. I have some stuff I think I should say to you and you deserve to hear,”

“Okay,” Lance took a deep breath “I’m listening.”

Keith nodded pausing a moment before speaking “I… owe you an apology.” He began. Lance fought the urge to protest, he didn’t think he should interrupt “recently, I um, started going to therapy.” He said sounding a little embarrassed “I broke up with Damien and I was so happy and I realized that I’ve been unhappy for a long time and I don’t have to be. One of the things my therapist is having me do is communicate with the people in my life and apologize to people I’ve done wrong. I’ve been pretty reckless with my actions and regardless of my intentions I hurt a lot of people and I know one of them was you… I know it was wrong to start a relationship with you.”

Lance frowned at that but before he could be hurt Keith continued.

“The first time I wanted to kiss you I should have gone and broken up with Damien right then, even if you didn’t want a real relationship with me I should have told you I wanted that and at least I would have tried. But, I didn’t… I guess I didn’t understand what I wanted. Then I just left you without a real explanation and that was wrong. The truth is Lance, I realized I was in love with you. I’d never been in love before and it terrified me that I’d fallen for you so quickly. So I ran. Then when I saw you again I started being an ass to you because it was easier than admitting that after all that time I was still in love with you. I _am_ still in love with you. I’m not expecting anything Lance, but I needed you to know.”

Lance was frozen processing everything “oh my god,” he got out eventually “you love me?”

“Yes,” Keith nodded nervously.

“I-I’m in love with you too,” Lance said numbly.

“Yeah…” Keith chuckled “I kind of figured that out.”

Lance laughed “of course you did,” they were still for a moment just watching each other before Lance looked down biting his lip “I’m sorry too, I was also an ass. I shouldn’t have led Felicity on and I shouldn’t have been a dick to you. I should have just told you I loved you, maybe we could have skipped all this mess.”

“I forgive you, Lance.”

“I forgive you too,”

“So what do you think?” Keith asked “friends?”

Lance reached for his outstretched hand shaking it firmly “friends,” he agreed.

“How long do you think that’ll last this time?”

Lance laughed “hopefully longer than four hours,”

“Hopefully,” Keith smiled, his dark eyes glinting in the sunlight,

And Lance couldn’t help but think, truthfully for the first time in awhile, that everything was going to be _just fine_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We’re almost there folks, one more chapter after this to tie things up! Hope you liked this, sorry I didn’t get around to editing sooner. Love y’all <3


	7. now I’m covered in you: the epilogue

**  
Chapter seven:** **now I’m covered in you**

It started like this,

or maybe it ended.

Maybe there was never a beginning or an end, it was just a continuous circle of fate that was always going to happen no matter what. The truth was, it didn’t much matter anymore.

Keith and Lance being friends wound up lasting an entire year this time, longer than anyone anticipated. Right up until a night at the lake on the 4th of July when they’d been the only ones still awake, sitting together at the fire pit and Lance had turned to Keith and said:

“Can we stop being friends now?”

Keith had took one look at the way Lance’s face was hopeful, lit by the warm glow of the fire, and promptly pushed him down and kissed him until they had to pull apart giddily for air.

“So not friends?” Keith asked breathlessly.

“No absolutely not, oh my god, Keith please date me.”

“Well,” Keith grinned “since you asked so nicely,”

Their engagement happened two years after that, Keith had come home from work late and crawled into bed next to Lance who immediately snuggled into Keith, wrapping his arms around his waist and pressing a sleepy kiss to Keith’s shoulder.

And Keith froze, the bright red letters of the digital clock shining in the dark, so reminiscent of the moment Keith had realized he was in love years before.

Except this time Keith knew Lance would be there when he woke up. They’d eat an early breakfast together, Lance would insist on tying Keith’s tie because he believed Keith did it wrong, and they’d kiss each other goodbye before heading off to work. Then Keith would get to come home to Lance that night. So instead of freaking out, Keith turned over and nudged his boyfriend.

“Lance,” he whispered into the dark.

“Yeah?” Came Lance’s muffled response, his voice heavy with sleep.

“Do you want to get married?”

Lance sat straight up at that sleep leaving him instantly. “Are you serious?”

“Of course,”

Lance nodded slowly “…okay.”

“Okay,” Keith repeated with a smile and he pulled his brand new fiancé into his arms.

—

Neither Keith nor Lance had the best track record with engagements, something their friends joked endlessly about. Were they actually going to get married?

But despite the jokes, everyone knew it’d happen eventually, even if they also knew it’d probably be a long and disastrous road leading up to it.

And well, it was…

Keith and Lance’s mothers _did not_ get along, which made wedding planning a bit of a war zone. Setting a date took an entire year because everyone was so busy they couldn’t figure a good time to do it. Felicity sent a kind and well-meaning congratulations when she heard the news which made Lance cry and Damien passive aggressively wished them well at a business function which made Keith laugh.

They fought over the plans for their wedding so much that the first planner they hired quit when they couldn’t agree on colors, and eventually it was decided that they needed something more low-key.

Which is how after many days of tears, stress, and excitement. Keith and Lance _finally_ got married in a small ceremony on the beach.

Keith messed up his vows which sent Lance into a fit of laughter, Shiro sighed from the seats saying that _only_ those two would mess up their own wedding. But, they were married. Against all odds.

At the party a slightly edited version of their love story was told while their friends who knew how messy it’d actually been tried to keep straight faces.

“So, what do you think?” Lance asked tiredly once the wedding was over and the guests were gone.

“Of what?”

“Being married to me,”

Keith shrugged ever honest “doesn’t feel much different than being engaged or dating you. I’m still in love with you except now with a contract.”

Lance laughed “you’re so unromantic, I hate you.”

“No you don’t, you wouldn’t have it any other way.”

“No,” Lance admitted with a fond sigh “I wouldn’t,”

It doesn’t end here,

There are a million other things that happen in Keith and Lance’s life, kids, pets, promotions, friends, family.

But this is where we leave them

Because that’s _their_ story _,_ and you have your own to live.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did I write this baby chapter of an ending a month ago but then just forget to post it??? Maybe... look that might be the most ON BRAND thing I’ve done because I am extremely absent and air-headed(Once the sink overflowed while I was standing in front of it and I didn’t notice until I was a foot deep in water lmao). 
> 
> ANyway, I hope the few people who read this liked it, I’m thinking of writing a Hannibal fic next which I’m excited about (I’ve only ever written VLD stuff on AO3) but I just started spring semester so don’t expect me to get on anything too soon.

**Author's Note:**

> Taylor swift released ANOTHER album (jeez that woman never sleeps) so of course I have to write a fic inspired by one of her songs. I did the same thing with Lover and folklore (though I haven’t finished either of those fics so u have permission to threaten me if I start letting this die). 
> 
> I’m still writing Stories from a Treacherous Place so never fear, I’m not abandoning that fic. I’m almost finished I just needed a break from writing my fic about an eating disorder because I deal with that enough in my real life.


End file.
